Chapter x
. of which, relating to the hurricane of 1889, was first published in the Scots Observer, edited by Mr. Henley.
[_Vailima, March 1892._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for those that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let the slips be sent _quam primum_ to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick with that chapter--about five days of the toughest kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such another pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be a direct and an indirect pronoun differently declined--then writing would be some fun.
DIRECT INDIRECT
He Tu Him Tum His Tus
Ex.: _He_ seized _tum_ by _tus_ throat; but _tu_ at the same moment caught _him_ by his hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an inflection like that! Yet there would be difficulties too.
Please add to my former orders--
_Le Chevalier Des Touches_ } by Barbey d'Aurevilly. _Les Diabohques_ } _Correspondence de Henri Beyle_ (Stendahl).
Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THE REV. S. J. WHITMEE
In this letter the essential points of Stevenson's policy for Samoa are defined more clearly than anywhere else. His correspondent, an experienced missionary who had been absent from the islands and lately returned, and whom Stevenson describes as being of a nature essentially "childlike and candid," had been induced to support the idea of a one-man power as necessary for putting an end to the existing confusion, and to suggest the Chief Justice, Mr. Cedercrantz, as the person to wield such power. In the present letter and a subsequent conversation Stevenson was able to persuade his correspondent to abandon at least that part of his proposal which concerned the Chief Justice.
_[Vailima] Sunday. Better Day, Better Deed. April 24th, 1892._
Private and confidential.
DEAR MR. WHITMEE,--I have reflected long and fully on your paper, and at your kind request give you the benefit of my last thoughts.
I. I cannot bring myself to welcome your idea of one man. I fear we are too far away from any moderative influence; and suppose it to be true that the paper is bought, we should not even have a voice. Could we be sure to get a Gordon or a Lawrence, ah! very well. But in this out-of-the-way place, are these extreme experiments wise? Remember Baker; with much that he has done, I am in full sympathy; and the man, though wholly insincere, is a thousand miles from ill-meaning; and see to what excesses he was forced or led.
II. But I willingly admit the idea is possible with the right man, and this brings me with greater conviction to my next point. I cannot endorse, and I would rather beg of you to reconsider, your recommendation of the Chief Justice. I told you the man has always attracted me, yet as I have earnestly reconsidered the points against him, I find objection growing....
But there is yet another argument I have to lay before you. We are both to write upon this subject. Many of our opinions coincide, and, as I said the other day, on these we may reasonably suppose that we are not far wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly counter. No doubt but this will lessen the combined weight of our arguments where they coincide. And to avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to you to modify or cancel the last paragraph of your article.
III. But I now approach what seems to me by far the most important. White man here, white man there, Samoa is to stand or fall (bar actual seizure) on the Samoan question. And upon this my mind is now really made up. I do not believe in Laupepa alone; I do not believe in Mataafa alone. I know that their conjunction implies peace; I am persuaded that their separation means either war or paralysis. It is the result of the past, which we cannot change, but which we must accept and use or suffer by. I have now made up my mind to do all that I may be able--little as it is--to effect a reconciliation between these two men Laupepa and Mataafa; persuaded as I am that there is the one door of hope. And it is my intention before long to approach both in this sense. Now, from the course of our interview, I was pleased to see that you were, if not equally strong with myself, at least inclined to much the same opinion. And in a carefully weighed paper, such as that you read me, I own I should be pleased to have this cardinal matter touched upon. At home it is not, it cannot be, understood: Mataafa is thought a rebel; the Germans profit by the thought to pursue their career of vengeance for Fagalii; the two men are perpetually offered as alternatives--they are no such thing--they are complementary; authority, supposing them to survive, will be impossible without both. They were once friends, fools and meddlers set them at odds, they must be friends again or have so much wisdom and public virtue as to pretend a friendship. There is my policy for Samoa. And I wish you would at least touch upon that point, I care not how; because, although I am far from supposing you feel it to be necessary in the same sense or to the same degree as I do, I am well aware that no man knows Samoa but must see its huge advantages. Excuse this long and tedious lecture, which I see I have to mark private and confidential, or I might get into deep water, and believe me, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The maps herein bespoken do not adorn the ordinary editions of _Catriona_, only the Edinburgh edition, for which they were executed by Messrs. Bartholomew in a manner that would have rejoiced the writer's heart.
_[Vailima] April 28, 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have just written the dedication of _David Balfour_ to you, and haste to put a job in your hands. This is a map of the environs of Edinburgh _circa_ 1750. It must contain Hope Park, Hunter's Bog, Calton Hill, the Mouter Hill, Lang Dykes, Nor' Loch, West Kirk, Village of Dean, pass down the water to Stockbridge, Silver Mills, the two mill lakes there, with a wood on the south side of the south one which I saw marked on a plan in the British Museum, Broughton, Picardy, Leith Walk, Leith, Pilrig, Lochend, Figgate Whins. And I would like a piece in a corner, giving for the same period Figgate Whins, Musselburgh, Inveresk, Prestonpans, battlefield of Gladsmuir, Cockenzie, Gullane--which I spell Gillane--Fidra, Dirleton, North Berwick Law, Whitekirk, Tantallon Castle and Castleton, Scougal and Auldhame, the Bass, the Glenteithy rocks, Satan's Bush, Wildfire rocks, and, if possible, the May. If need were, I would not stick at two maps. If there is but one, say, _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures in the Lothians_. If two, call the first _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures about the city of Edinburgh_, and the second, _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures in East Lothian_. I suppose there must be a map-maker of some taste in Edinburgh; I wish few other names in, but what I have given, as far as possible. As soon as may be I will let you have the text, when you might even find some amusement in seeing that the maps fill the bill. If your map-maker be a poor creature, plainness is best; if he were a fellow of some genuine go, he might give it a little of the bird's-eye quality. I leave this to your good taste. If I have time I will copy the dedication to go herewith; I am pleased with it. The first map (suppose we take two) would go in at the beginning, the second at